Mountain Style Decorating

In trying to understand how to blend my classic traditional style with the style of our 1960 ranch house, I've been taking a look at decorating styles that I usually pay attention to.  One of these is the "Mountain Style".

Mountain style can also be mixed easily with a "cabin style" and a "pioneer style".  The thing to add that kick a "pioneer" or "cabin" style into "mountain" is pine boughs and animal skins.  Because I've been volunteering all summer with my boys at our local pioneer park, I've got the pioneer style in my head every Friday after being in the "Charles C Rich Home" and giving tours, and these styles are very close to each other.

To get the mountain style, you need these ingredients:
1. pine boughs
2. animal skins

3. wood floors

4. walls with texture (like logs, plaster, or v-groove wall board)

5. rock texture either in fireplace or a rock wall

6. rough beam ceiling, if possible

7. simple wood furniture

8. very very little upholstery furniture

9. if furniture is painted, only a few; "chippy" preferably

10. baskets

11. firewood

12. Navajo rug and textiles

13. just a few Victorian elements: blue and white platter or ornately framed black and white photo

14. candles

15. iron metal elements: fireplace accessories or candle holders or light fixtures

17. simple plaid or stripped fabrics

18. very little color

This will not be the style that I decorate my modern house with, but I'd like to mix a little of this style into my home because we live in the Salt Lake Valley, shadowed by the Wasatch mountains.  The mountains are part of our lifestyle.  We can drive to several canyons for a hike or cookout within 10-20 minutes.  Giving our home part of this look will give people a sense of place when they visit us.

Next, I will be looking at the Prairie Style--which is the progenitor of the Ranch house movement.